For those of you who have not celebrated Easter near a K-Mart, Peeps are marshmallow puffs coated in powdered sugar. They come in various colors and shapes, the most heinous--and not surprisingly most popular--being the little yellow bird with its beady red eyes. Created in 1953, the so-called "three-dimensional marshmallow Easter 'Peep' was made by laboriously hand-squeezing marshmallow through pastry tubes." Today, nearly two million of the little bastards are shat out by high-tech marshmallow scrooching machines EVERY DAY.

But what really is inside a Peep? Even science cannot give us the answer.

At prestigious Emory University in Atlanta, chemists set out to discover exactly what the freakishly yellow little puffs are made of.

Experiments were performed data was recorded. Exposing the bastards to water, acetone, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide did not adversely affect them. Indeed, they seemed to thrive.

After much thought, the chemists asked the question:

"If Peeps aren't composed of sugar, what are they? Protein seemed the only other choice. Phenol seemed, then, to be our best choice of solvent."

The Peep selected for this experiment took 65 minutes to dissolve but no chemical known to man could dissolve the Peep eyes. That's right: the eyes never dissolve.

Think about all of those young children out there, running downstairs to find their Easter baskets, tearing open a packet of Peeps and chowing down on the grotesque little puffs of Satan's jism. Now fast forward through years of Peepeating, expanded holidays bringing us Pumpkin Peeps, Spooky Cats, Christmas Trees and--most disturbing of all--Hearts. All with little beady Peep eyes, all rotting in the bellies of our children.

There are alternatives to Peeps. Life does not have to travel the ups and downs of the holiday seasons. One Easter, you may pick up a packet of Peeps as a joke for a friend and suddenly, you find one in your mouth. At the grocery store, you may be approached by an elderly lady in an apron offering "free samples." Nothing in life is free. Those Peeps come with a price and that price is your life. Before you know it, you're eating the bunnies and the trees and the ghosts and suddenly it's the Fourth of July and you're not thinking of barbecue. You're not thinking about how we beat those English cowards back across the sea. You're thinking, "Why don't they make a Flag Peep? Why don't they have firework Peeps?" And before you know it, you've got a real problem. You're a Peep addict and there's no looking back and if you do look back, it's Peep eyes you see, following you around the room, walking out of the house with you, getting into your car and all you can think even as you rifle through the glove compartment looking for that sticky little Scaredy Cat Peep you dropped in the parking lot at Walmart last week is you were warned. You knew better.

So, as you chew your little protein-based so-called marshmallow, consider this warning. Consider what your rotting Peep-filled intestines look like and know that someone tried to save you. Someone tried to help you.

Beware the eyes of Peeps.

Part of the anti-Peep movement from a very young age, Karin Slaughter has worked tirelessly to further the cause. She likes peanuts in her Coke and knows every convenience store selling Icees from Atlanta to Florida.

Her first published book, Blindsighted, will be out in June 2001.

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